Men and Officers of 302 Artillery Regiment, Onitsha in Anambra State donating gift items and undisclosed amount of cash to motherless babies home in Otuocha, Anambra East LGA, recently. Photo: NAN

The Council for the Regu
lation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) on Sunday said a Harmonised Standard Service Charges was underway to enhance freight forwarders’ operation at the Nigerian ports.
CRFFN Registrar, Mr Mike Jukwe, speaking at a news forum in Abuja, said a committee set up for the implementation of the harmonised service charges would turn in its report on October 25.
“We have worked on a harmonised standard service charge for all freight forwarders, last week in Lagos we set up a committee made up of all the associations to look at what the management has been able to produce.
“We will get their input, before long there will be a pronouncement on it, the Minister of Transport will be in a position to say that for freight forwarding services this is how much you have to pay and that is it.
“So it will bring sanity into the system.
“Right now there is no standard charge, every freight forwarder charges what he wants but as a responsible regulatory agency we will ensure that we harmonise all the different charges.
“We will use the parameters that are involve and come up with a standard charge which will say all of you will just charge this,’’ Jukwe said.
Jukwe said with harmonised charges and the minister’s pronouncement on it, all the freight forwarders would collaborate to see how the sector could contribute to 48-hour cargo clearance at the ports.
“I think what we need to improve on really is the system; the new technology improves the time factor and the way we do things.
“In Singapore for instance, you can clear your cargo within 24 hours no matter the volume and the things that help this is that if you receive the manifest in good time, you know that a particular vessel is coming in, bringing your cargo.
“You perfect your documents in good time, you approach the customs, you have everything done early enough, you pay all the charges, by the time the cargo arrives within a short time you can do it.
“In Nigeria we have been aiming at 48 hours in cargo clearance processes, we have not achieved that because as at last count we are still about an average of 14 days. But the marching order from the government is that we should go 48 hours.
“We on our own side from the freight forwarding sector we hope that as soon as we harmonise our charges and the honourable minister makes a pronouncement on that, we will now give a lot of our energy to see how our sector can contribute to the 48 hours.’’
He noted that some factors of production were responsible for the high charges in ports adding that a“ freight forwarder who will give a final charge will also consider the charge he has to pay out.
The Registrar explained that the poor state of the facilities and some other factors were responsible for the high charges at the ports.
“If the roads are in good position the charges will be lower.’’
He said concessioning of the Nigerian ports had improved ports’ performance in the terms of the equipment and infrastructure that were there before concession was adopted and these facilities were much more modern today than in the past.
However, he said Nigerian ports needed to be improved in terms of its systems, especially moving from paper documentation to new technology in order to improve the time factor and services at the ports.